POLL: When Is Too Early For Christmas Creep?

By alexchasickNovember 6, 2009

After we proposed tracking Starbucks’s roll out of Christmas products as a metric to gauge yearly Christmas Creep, we got a fair amount of comments saying they saw no problem with Christmas stuff coming out once Halloween was over. So, inside, a poll: at what point does Christmas Creep become acceptable holiday display?

As a follow-up to the Starbucks post, we received a couple emails from employees who told us that Starbucks begins using the red cups typically on the first Tuesday of November, but doesn’t start offering the peppermint mocha and all that stuff until later-November 17, according to one tipster.

@squinko: I’m okay with stores who have “seasonal” departments swapping out the Halloween merchandise for the Christmas merchandise. Anything before November 1st is too soon.

That gets the Christmas trees, ornaments, and decorations out for people to purchase before Thanksgiving weekend. There’s absolutely no need for the Christmas merchandise to be spilling out into other departments so early. We don’t need to be in holiday mode 12 months a year.

I don’t think that stores or malls need to decorate, play carols, or anything similar until after Thanksgiving.

@inadequatewife: I’m with you, here. From a retail standpoint, the “seasonal” area (in a discount retailer) needs to be filled with something right after Halloween, and there’s generally not that much Thanksgiving stuff. So, I’m fine with right after Halloween.

The only problem is the stores that put out their Christmas crap several weeks BEFORE Halloween. It’s just too early, and who cares about buying Christmas ornaments in October anyways?

Disclaimer: I work in a store that did just this – put out ALL the Christmas stuff before Halloween, pretty much moving the Halloween stuff to a few mismatched racks on the main aisles. It really pissed me off.

@squinko: I think it’s unavoidable to have Christmas stuff out before Thanksgiving. They have to get people thinking “Christmas” before Black Friday. If stuff didn’t go up until Black Friday, then I bet one could demonstrate that Black Friday would less successful.

Yeah your right retailers should have all their employees work all of thanksgiving day getting all of the holiday stock out and store decorated and prepped for black friday. Why would they put stuff out earlier to give stores time to set endcaps and sell stuff to people who may want it earlier. Just make the peons work on one of their few holidays.

@MostlyHarmless: We don’t celebrate any holidays around the end of the year except for New Year’s, so I wish I could say I don’t care. From a retail standpoint, it makes sense to push out Christmas stuff as soon as possible since people don’t really buy presents for Thanksgiving. Scooby’s got it right, it’s easy for stores to move straight from Halloween into Christmas.
Whatever. I’m the Grinch. Pass the bourbon.

@h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes: I have seen Target fill their seasonal section with bulk packages of typical home essentials in between holidays. At least up north they could use it to push things like snow shovels, supplies you might stock up on at home. I doubt there is a huge demand for ceramic turkeys and fall colored tablecloths, so filling up an entire section might not work.

All this push for Christmas so early has burned me out on the entire thing already and it is only the first week of November. This is a new record.

@MostlyHarmless: I’m okay with Halloween too. Anytime around the end of October is good with me because we don’t really celebrate Halloween but we do love Christmas. It’s important for us to be able to plan ahead with gift giving and the few Christmas-themed things we buy per year.

@MostlyHarmless: Nah, after Halloween is fine. I just hate turning the corner in Target and going from Vampires and Bats to jolly santa’s.

Nov 1st is perfectly acceptable. After Thanksgiving would be amazing, but that’s never going to happen. As one commentor already said, a lot of people put up the Tree the day after thanksgiving, so how are they going to get other decorations if you couldn’t buy em? Just please wait until AFTER Halloween. No purple/blue and black mixing with gold and red.

@MostlyHarmless: I said Halloween. I don’t put the tree up until after Thanksgiving, but if I’m going to change the decor that year I’d rather be able to get stuff without having to go out on Black Friday.

@MostlyHarmless: I’m ok with stores putting stuff out before Thanksgiving because a lot of people, like myself, like to begin our Christmas season the day after Thanksgiving. Sometimes you need supplies for that.

My only request: KEEP THE @$*$ING CHRISTMAS MUSIC OFF TILL AFTER THANKSGIVING!!!

@MostlyHarmless: I am staying out of stores more and more, so I suppose I shouldn’t let it bother me – but when I do need to go in, egad I can’t deal with all the red & green vomited everywhere and the Xmas music. My parents consider me a grinch. I give, a lot. I just wish it wasn’t so in my face.

I think right after Thanksgiving is a little too early, at least to go hog wild. The earlier and more you see it, the less meaning it has. It kind of pisses me off more than anything until you get like a week away. I know stores need to sell decorations and presents, but maybe the Christmas cups at Starbucks could wait until 2 week before? You could build up slowly.

I worked at a craft store for a couple years. The time for craft stores to put out merchandise for Christmas crafts is all year. The time to order merchandise specifically for a Christmas season, however, is slightly before Christmas of the year before.

After Thanksgiving. You may purchase little christmas things here and there 1 week piror to Thanksgiving and storing them in the closet. Then on sat/sun after Thanksgiving you go out and start shopping for Christmas things all the way up untill Dec 27. Stores may start showing the Cristmas wares in the corner at around November 18. No trees may go up untill the first weekend of December. I have spoken.

I said Halloween, because for those up North, it’s the last real holiday before Xmas. Of course, there’s Novemberance day, but nobody pays any attention to that at all ’round these parts (apart from the occasional poppy).

I can stand it after Halloween. Prefer later, but I just don’t go down those aisles, no need for it, as we celebrate Yule instead (lot less decorations needed). I do wait till after Thanksgiving to start singing happy chrismahanakwanzika to you! if that helps any.

@pecan 3.14159265: Because it has no meaning. Its a season of the year where you can trample other human beings to get some cheap chinese crap and not care you just took someone’s life. Its the time when children become focused on whats under the tree instead of the love of their family around them.

@Kimaroo – Fortified with Kittydus Purrularis: Wow, that’s incredibly judgmental and short-sighted. It’s about how everyone loves to watch the Peanuts Christmas specials because of their sentimental attachment to them, but they have long ago missed the whole message of the show, about how consumerism (how appropriate!) has taken over the holiday. It’s a time to exclude others. You apparently have somewhere lovely to go each Christmas, but not everyone does, and for those people, it’s a very lonely time. The irony is that very few people think about the actual “spirit of the season”, and instead, they hole up with the same people and never give a thought to those who might be alone.

And the music – it’s excruciating. I don’t need to hear “Santa Baby” 4500 times. It’s not cute.

@watchwhathappens: I’m sorry that I wasn’t clear, but I wasn’t talking about Christmas at all. I have noticed that 99% of his comments are negative. I honestly think that it would be a sad thing to live with so much anger inside. I just noticed that PecanPi finnally said something regarding his negativity.

@Colonel Jack O’Neill: I agree with you. I have my own reasons for hating this time of year. I don’t talk to my family because I needed to separate myself from alot of the drama that goes on. So around this time of year all my friends go back home or go away with their fam and it is just me and my cat. I buy her lots of toys and I order Chinese food and watch DVR’d programs or play with my xbox.

You know, I hate it when people call the Christmas tree, “holiday tree” in an attempt to be politically correct. Please, retailers, this country was founded on Judeo Christian values (Puritans). Besides, most of this country identifies themselves as Christians, so why not just call it the Christmas Tree!?

Also, they should start selling their goods near Gobble-Gobble day. This gives people enough time to set everything up.

“To the New England Puritans, Christmas was sacred. The pilgrims’s second governor, William Bradford, wrote that he tried hard to stamp out “pagan mockery” of the observance, penalizing any frivolity. The influential Oliver Cromwell preached against “the heathen traditions” of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated “that sacred event.” In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 (other than a church service) a penal offense; people were fined for hanging decorations. That stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.”

Now, I agree with you that it should be called a “Christmas tree” as long as it is a tree that is decorated for the purpose of celebrating Christmas. But it doesn’t have squat to do with “Judeo-Christian values” (um, and the “Judeo” part of that isn’t particularly relevant to this discussion in the first place) or Puritans or founding fathers or teabags or whatever the hell else. Also, let us remember that Christmas is not a holiday just for Americans, and that it is certainly not just a holiday for self-righteous douchebags who use every December as an excuse to wail and gnash their teeth with their feigned outrage whenever someone, especially a shop clerk, has the audacity to wish them happy holidays or to practice a different religion. So Bah Humbug to you, good sir/madam!

PS: I am both shocked and highly offended that you replaced the Judeo-Christian-American sacred holiday name “Thanksgiving” with the bizzare and highly inappropriate “Gobble Gobble Day”. Please return your Christian Patriot Card to headquarters.

I think “after Thanksgiving” is too late for lots of marketing and sale-pricing campaigns. But I wish they’d at least wait until mid-November. Well, our opinions mean nothing, obviously, given that this year Christmas started Creeping in August.

I think after halloween is fine, the problem with the creep starts when it comes in before halloween and mixes with the halloween stuff. I would also appreciate if they waited till like November 3rd or 4th to start putting up the decorations because at that point I am still shopping for next year’s halloween stuff and don’t want to look at Xmas stuff right around the corner. I also don’t want to look at Xmas decorations ON halloween.

The stores need something to fill the void in the aisles and there isn’t enough thanksgiving merchandise to do that. But please leave a little bit of thanksgiving stuff out and don’t put out the Xmas stuff until a couple days after halloween.

Wintery stuff after Halloween so you can have traditional ‘Winter’ decorations like pine boughs and fancy plates to decorate for Thanksgiving. Many northern states have some snow by then anyway. Specifcally themed X-Mas/Holiday stuff should wait until after Thanksgiving though. (As an aside, my family gets together from across the country for Thanksgiving not Christmas, so we tend to blend them. We don’t expect to buy X-Mas stuff though. We drag out what we already have for decorations.)

I’m okay with beginning to advertise and sell Christmas merchandise after Halloween – I like to shop early and not cram it in last minute. But Christmas music is another thing altogether – that can wait until after Thanksgiving, or better yet, December 1.

No sooner had Halloween ended Saturday evening than Sunday my wonderful Giant Eagle grocery store was busy putting up the giant Santa and Frosty inflatables in the front of the store. The general merchandise aisle was littered in Christmas stuff – not a turkey or cornucopia to be had. Thank goodness I still have my “Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” DVD to turn to in times like these – AND my cornucopia is adorning the dining room table. Bah, humbug!

I don’t know, in my mind “Christmas Creep” carries the connotation (look at that alliteration!) that it is unseasonably early, in which case I’d be voting on when it was too early for it to be too early..? I see that the poll itself clarifies, but Christmas Creep shouldn’t apply to an appropriately timed rolling out of the holiday paraphernalia.

Considering I start my Christmas shopping after Halloween to spread the spending across 3 credit card bills, I’m not really bothered. I won’t put up my personal decorations until after Thanksgiving but that’s more of a “I don’t want to dust this shit for months!” kind of thing.

I just feel like I have bigger fish to fry than freaking out about a garland or Christmas display. People need something to look forward to in their lives right now. No need to be a Grinch.

Will be decorating my house this weekend. Can’t let 70Â° temps go to waste. Too many times have I froze to death putting up decorations. The cold air will be back soon enough in my part of the country.

I think it depends on the weather. When the red and orange leaves are still on the trees, it’s TOO EARLY for xmas music. Now if it starts snowing early and getting wintery, then it doesn’t bother me so much. But when I hear “Let it snow” on the radio and there are fall leaves covering my car and it’s still 50 degrees out, I get annoyed.

I actually said after labor day. I never understood the hate behind the christmas creep. If some places want to sell christmas stuff early then that’s perfectly fine. Some people actually prefer to get their decorations and/or gifts out of the way and avoid the rush.

Possibly the worst Christmas Creep I ever saw was actually twenty years ago, in the form of a “Radio Shack Merry Christmas” commercial during the seventh-inning stretch of the last game of the World Series.

I wait all year for eggnog, peppermint and pumpkin pie ice cream flavors. Besides, it takes a few weeks to actually get in the mood. I’m okay with Thanksgiving and Christmas stuff AFTER Halloween, but not before. I mean, pretty much the day after Halloween until January second is one big holiday anyway – That’s why it’s called the Holiday Season :)

My opinion is to allow for a SMALL section of Christmas ornaments and stuff in a secluded back aisle as early as the start of October, as long as it’s out of sight of mainstream shoppers. In early November you can start making discreet references to things like catalogs and holiday gift cards. Wait until Thanksgiving to pull out the bulk of decorations, and even then introduce the music only slowly, not getting to continuous Yuletide standards until about December 10 or so.

But I also think Thanksgiving should be two weeks earlier so that its seasonal themes conform more to Mother Nature’s calendar.

@frank64: It does, doesn’t it? But reflect, every craft store is ordering at the same time as every other one, and there are only so many major vendors for that stuff, so everyone winds up with more or less the same merchandise anyway.

@speedwell, avatar of snark: Well, I’m a quilter, and if I’m making a “christmas” quilt, you bet your boots I need the fabric by July at the latest. (That’s why I try not to give “themes” but Aunt Barb just won’t take anything else for the holidays.)

@pecan 3.14159265: This is the first time I am going to have to disagree strongly with you. You really can’t ever truly understand another’s reasons for their behavior or personality. (Unless of course you are a full on empath, but I’ve only met one in my life and the chances of meeting another are pretty slim.)

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I just love wrapping gifts. It’s one of the simplest things, but I love using really pretty paper and making gifts look so great. And I love having all those colors under the tree, even though we don’t put too many gifts down there. We usually put the gifts we give each other, and then the ones for family down there just so there are actually boxes there.

@speedwell, avatar of snark: I think there is a difference however between having a few Christmas themed products, especially in a craft store where things require some level of assembly, and the stores going into full-on decorating mode for the holidays in July. There is no reason why stores need to have their Christmas trees or inflatable Santas up and on display in September with holiday music playing over the store sound system and the snow covered fake evergreen baughs and large ornaments hanging from the ceiling when I am shopping in shorts and a T-shirt.

@HogwartsAlum: Plenty of family and kids around. I would much rather visit relatives in the summer. I swear the current state of “the holidays” just turns everyone weird. I’m also not big on “have to’s”. All of the forced holiday cheer combined with the insane behavior of people when you go out in public just sucks.

@HogwartsAlum: See, that’s why Xmas at our house is always open-invitation. Whether or not you celebrate the holiday, it’s a lonely time of year if you’ve got nothing going on (and you’re not an introvert who thrives on a few days by yourself). Since Christmas at my house rarely comes off with fewer than 20 people (and sometimes more than 80), you would have your choice of gossiping & cooking in the kitchen, reading & drinking in the living room, playing with the small children in the family room, or playing video games with the teenagers and putative adults in the basement.

If you want to make a phone call, though, you kind-of have to go outside to find enough quiet without disturbing the readers. :)

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): LOL See that sounds fun. My family has fun around the table, but honestly, after the presents are all done, it’s flat out boring. I’d almost rather do what bohemian said and go someplace warm and just relax.

I’m inclined to give retailers a pass this year, in light of their desperate straits and our financialocalypse. Next year, though, I’d love to see a movement to *boycott* those who put up displays earlier than the week before Thanksgiving.

If we really want Christmas Creep to stop, we have to vote with our wallets. A vocal boycott would do just that.